Wendy Murphy: And Justice for Some: Hounddog’ is child porn, not art

When it first erupted at the Sundance Film Festival a couple of years ago, the controversy around the movie “Hounddog” struck me as both important and potentially harmful.

Important because folks were talking about how the movie hurts children in the erotic way it portrays child sex abuse, and harmful because the criticism brought more attention to the film.

Now that it’s been released in theaters nationwide, child advocates have been dealing anew with the dilemma: informing the public about why the film is harmful, and thus stoking even more public curiosity, which means more exposure for the filmmakers.

I’m willing to take the risk that I might make more money for the creators of “Hounddog.” I don’t care. In fact, I hope to incite as much negative attention as possible, even though it will mean extra people lining up to see the film.

The movie centers on the terrible life of a 12-year-old impoverished child living in the South. In one scene, she’s shown being raped by an adult male. The movie doesn’t imply that she’s being violated, or convey the idea through dialogue. It’s a shot of the child, partially naked, actually being brutalized, though it doesn’t reveal any private body parts.

Good, you’re thinking – not too graphic, right?

Wrong.

The film is worse because instead of body parts, it focuses on the child’s face; contorted and terrified while her body is being torn apart by a filthy 200-pound man.

Some say this is exactly the right way to portray child rape. Get as close as possible to the feelings of the victim. Let the audience see the empty stares, the terror and the loss of innocence dripping away in the child’s silent tears.

It’s good to show the child’s pain. It helps the viewer develop empathy.

By depicting a child’s pain and connecting it with the viewer’s non-visual awareness that it’s caused by sexual activity, the filmmaker becomes a child pornographer. Tying together unwanted pain with sexual stimulation is exactly what makes pornography so destructive in our culture.

Anti-pornography advocates, like me, have no problem with erotic material. Most of us aren’t prudes or anti-art. We love all things sex. But when adult pleasure is caused by a human being’s suffering, it’s pornography. Period. It isn’t art or sex. Ever.

In fact, the porn in “Hounddog” may be worse than what we think of as real child pornography, which requires little imagination because it’s all there in full view.

When a filmmaker engages the audience to use imagination, as in “Hounddog,” the impact on the human psyche is far greater. Victoria’s Secret gets it. And Alfred Hitchcock understood this brilliantly – the idea that it’s even more titillating, and thus sells better – to cover up the sexual details just enough for the user to rev up and feel the effects of his imagination at the moment when violence meets stimulation.

Which brings us back to “Hounddog” and the creepy people who rush to the theater to see such a movie not for the story or the acting, but because they feel titillated reading the reviews that describe a suffering child being raped.

What kind of person finds pleasure looking at a child’s face, twisted in pain during a brutal act of violence?

What kind of person is excited to watch a little girl’s eyes become vacant in ultimate acceptance of a vicious sex act?

What kind of person thinks it is enjoyable to watch a child’s spirit dying at the hands of force and power she can’t possibly prevent?

I don’t know for sure. But I’m certain some of them will be our neighbors and friends, and they will claim to be in line to see movies like “Hounddog” because they live sophisticated or avant garde lives, high above the rest of us plebes, which is why they can appreciate a film that dares to push the envelope, blah blah blah.

Sure.

I’ll be there, too. Not buying a ticket but taking pictures of the people in line. These are the folks we need to worry about.

Forget sex offender registries. We should be looking more closely at the “regular people” who cover their inclinations with good jobs, picket fences and a bit too much respect for edgy art.

Wendy Murphy is a leading victims rights advocate and nationally recognized television legal analyst. She is an adjunct professor at New England Law in Boston and radio talk show host. She can be reached at wmurphy@nesl.edu

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